Mission: Badlands

[JRD]

You made it to a NAPA's hideout after escorting the convoy... now it's time to begin an assault to Chedaki contolled villages in order to weaken their influence in the Sobor region.
You begin your raid NE of Novy Sobor. This time you have some NAPA soldiers at your disposal and a mobile HQ that will be deployed as soon as you take Novy Sobor... and it will change the way you play the game.
Your main goal is to seise 4 vilages:
-Novy Sobor
-Stary Sobor
-Rogovo
-Pogorevka

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The first two villages will give you a lot of trouble... the remaining two should be easier (at least on my playthrough)

TAKING NOVY SOBOR

Novy Sobor has 4 static defense sites... grenade launchers, cannons, machineguns.... you can't face them one on one unless you can take them out from afar.

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NAPA troops are very good in getting shot... so you better clean the way of static defense before call them in... they are pretty effective when facing regular Chedaki soldiers though, so you can use them to move into town after taking out static defenses.
I went for the northern SD first... I had a DMR sniper rifle with me, which proved to be an excellent weapon in this mission. After killing the soldiers there I called my men in and moved into Novy Sobor... great firefight...
Apart from the SD, you have to be careful with vehicles with mounted guns... UAZ with MG and GL patrol the village.
I took the western SD (a grenade launcher... again, keep your men away, clean the SD and call them in) and moved into the main road, killing the UAZ with the help of guerrillas...
When you take Novy Sobor you get a cutscene of civilians worried about NAPA and USMC presence... there is a priest by the name of Fyodor there to soften things up....
Your mobile HQ is ready to move in... meet them just south of town in an open area

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After this point, you get a "Construction" option when pressing middle mouse button (or using mouse wheel) if you are close to the mobile HQ...

Arma 2 now has a Real Time Strategy feature.... not sure how good this is though.

Build a base... forget about defenses... supply trucks will now be in and out, delivering goods and earning you money to buy units, vehicles and so..... get yourself an RPG and some rockets to fire... you'll need them next. In the beginning, you have a low budget, but as trucks keep going in and out while you assault Stary Sobor, you'll have more money than you can spend in no time.

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Now it's time to regroup those NAPA soldiers who survived the first assault and move into Stary Sobor.... again, four SD and UAZ in town, plus 2 light armored vehicles

TAKING STARY SOBOR

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As usual... I moved in with Razor only... left NAPA morons at bay... a tough battle... I managed to get up on a warehouse in the eastern area and from there picked several soldiers and one of the armored vehicles... very cool   :-X ... the other APC was easy too after I got control of town...
Then I found myself in a mess... too many controls, too many NPCs to control, too many decisions to make... something that can be revolutionay in the gaming industry (a mix of FPS and RTS) felt unbalanced and too complicated as well as not effective.
To buy units and drive them into battle feels like Willie Wonka going into war with crazy Oompa Loompas on crack holding rifles... really... controlling all those men is way too clumsy to be fun... they just don't respond as you expect them to, you have to stop and try to recall what keys to push and in what order to make them do what you want... takes ages between realising what is necessary and doing it..... meanwhie, enemy AI is shooting at you...

TAKING ROGOVO

Good news is: no more APCs and small resistece.... move in through the front door. There is one SD (MG), but it's not too troublesome... As you get into the village, some men will prompt you to kill one NAPA leader... yes, a betraial.... Prizrak is the NAPA leader,  radical, and while he's alive, there can be no alliance between NAPA and CDF... Prizrak is supposed to be responsible for many attrocities commited by NAPA extremists... he's also known as Fyodor  ;)...
...I couldn't find him, so I moved into Pogorevka

TAKING POGOREVKA

Again... little resistence and no armor... a direct assault did the trick for me... by then I was already sending Oompa Loompas ahead of me so Chedakis would have a good target practicing while I was picking them one by one from far away with my DRM  ;D ;D

Who's Fyodor and what will happen to Razor is due to the next mission...
As soon as I finish it, will post

Enjoy

Cheers all

[Art Blade]

JRD, it really pays off well highlighting important parts. Like that I can skim your wo... erm, post and within seconds I'm informed. Then I can re-read the article in full for the sheer pleasure of it :) Thanks for writing out those missions in full  :-X

[PZ]

Well said Art, and bravo, JRD!  :-X :-X :-X

[JRD]

Thanks... always a pleasure  ;)

This mission has more action at last.... I was getting tired of searching and running. It's a direct combat mission! This is a war sim, but it is a game as well and a game must be fun to play!

Manouvering dozens of infantry is annoying somtimes... a big mess.... supply trucks on the way running over your men (and over you even), orders not followed - I couldn't make Razor get into a tansport truck, but could make NAPA do it!!! When I managed to have 8 more soldiers at my command (F5 to F12) Razor begun acting like blondes.... getting lost in a wide open plain, running like idiots in circles, unable to follow my lead, getting shot etc...

So my big tip is... forget about managing a RTS game... send NPCs into the fire and protect yourself and Razor... nothing too complicated or you won't have fun....

I'm playing "Dogs of War" now... and it seems like another action packed missions... mission begins with Fyodor aka Prizrak, and you discussing a raid.
So I guess "Badlands" is where the story branches again if you kill him in the end.

I read there are four possible endings..... CDF or NAPA with Prizrak alive or dead maybe?... we'll see

[PZ]

I must admit that I'm not looking forward to being the commander because the action is too fast for my old reflexes, particularly now since you report how badly the troops under you behave (or misbehave as the case may be!)

[Art Blade]

PZ, tell your troops to shut the hell up and do as they are told, and if they do, that they might get some cookies and candies (biscuits and sweets) later  ;)

[PZ]

lol, or give myself the GAU-12 and gun them down myself  ;D

[Art Blade]

hahahaha! YES! lol  ;D

[JRD]

Have you guys played the old Age of Empires or any other RTS alike?
Arranging your army and sending it into a battle was quite intuitive and they behaved very well... expendable soldiers, of course, but that's what war is about.
Back then, I used to think how cool it would be to take the role of one soldier and play the battle as a FPS...  :)

What A2 proposes is what I wanted... a game concept that no other game has (as far as I'm aware, at least). But when you see it working, well, it's not as good as it could be.
Execution is too complicated, AI is too clumsy... either that or I'm too dumb to play... you can make it w@&k for sure... takes a lot of practice but eventually you'll know commands by heart and reacting to some situation will be easier.

My point is... how fun is that? I want a bit more action, a bit less intricacy... it would make the game more fluid.

Playing with the editor or custom missions where you command 2 or 3 men is much, much better. But I'm a campaign fan... I have to play it till the end at least once  ;)

[Art Blade]

AoE... Battle Elephants, Trebuchets... was cool :) Would look a little strange though, if in A2 you blew up elephants with grenade launchers or a fight between a tank and a catapult  ;D

[RedRaven]

you could create a 'Living Tank', give an Elephant a Kevlar suit and sit on top with a mk19 or M2 !  ;D

of course after a short while the poor old beast would be deaf as a door post!

[PZ]

Although I've seen Age of Empires on the shelves, I've never played it - looked interesting though.  I'm not familiar with the term "RTS", but it sounds almost like you're the commander of the army.

I agree with you - would love to command the troops if it was not so complicated to execute the instructions - too much to remember.  And, as you mentioned, it is quite fun to command a few men as you can do in the custom missions.  Speaking about custom missions, I read in the manual that good mission creators can build new templates (the game has only 3).  Has anyone had tried templates?

[JRD]

RTS = Real Time Strategy.
These are games where you are not a character, but rather a high commander or a kind of an all mighty entity.
You get a view of your game area from above and must gather resources like gold, wood, coal etc and build baracks, vehicles factories etc in order to build units as soldiers, tanks, or, in the AoE... catapults, swordsmen, spearmen etc.
In the mean time the enemy is doing the same in real time (hence the name)... if you can upgrade your units and build a consistent army in due time, you attack first and win, else, you are attacked during the process and loose.

Arma 2 attempted to put that dynamic into a FPS... but not too successful, in my opinion....

Anyway... back to war  ;D ;D

[PZ]

Thanks for the info - RTS games sound a bit too complicated for my simple gaming expertise  ;D

One guy shoots everything that moves = success for PZ  ;D

[Art Blade]

same here, PZ :)) That's why I avoid MP shooters... especially team play. Either I collect negative scores for the team by an abysmal rate of suicides or accidents involving team mates ("team kill"). Imagine one enemy surrounded by team mates. Surrounded as in arm's length distance. I would see that from far, shout "GEE" and fire a rocket at that group to take out the single enemy (and five team mates at the time, just calling it "collateral")  :P As for RTS, I would enjoy placing stone age facilities and troups and watch the busy things w@&k when the enemy comes rolling in with nukes. Already.  ;D

[PZ]

lol, you're describing almost exactly what I experience!  ;D